Page 17 - Blue Valley_Issue 2_2022

NATURE

Along the Sabie – best place in South Africa to see lions

At the end of the 20th century it was found that, Last year again saw a memorable flood along This dismayed Stevenson-Hamilton, for farmers
of the seven rivers that cross Kruger Park from the Sabie. had been clamouring for the reserve to be opened
west to east, all had, in time of drought, dried up for hunting. For a time, sheep grazed there
up – all, that is, except the Sabie. Uniquely, the The Sabie is by far the most biologically, and Stevenson-Hamilton, in trying to hold off
Sabie has never stopped flowing. If ever it does, hydrologically and geomorphically researched the pressure of the hunting lobby, suggested the
it would be nothing less than a national tragedy. river in South Africa. It was intensively monitored reserve be allowed to make money by capturing
during the Rivers Research Programme by young animals for zoos here and overseas. In
It was partly this threat that, in 1998, caused scores of scientists in various disciplines and, those days, soon after World War I (1918), giraffe
National Parks to launch the Kruger National for years, updated data were sent to around landed in England would fetch £1 000 and a
Park Rivers Research Programme – the largest 100 scientists who have developed a more than hippo would fetch £600.
and most comprehensive multi-disciplinary academic interest in the Sabie’s health.
river research programme ever undertaken in In fact, out of desperation, for a time the warden
South Africa. Kruger Park has continued facilitating did just that even though he abhorred having to
seminars and appraisal meetings to make sure compromise the conservation ethic. He hoped a
The 10 years of seminars produced vital new that what is happening and what is planned time would come when the government would
data – but too late to influence the building for the Sabie River supports their vision for proclaim the Sabi Game Reserve a national park.
of the Injaka Dam, whose impoundment was South Africa’s flagship tourist attraction. Their
completed the following year and whose impact vision has been described as “to maintain That’s exactly what happened. In 1926, the
will take years to assess. In fact, directly after the biodiversity in all its natural facets and fluxes government took over the Sabi Game Reserve
dam was completed, in 2000, Mpumalanga was and to provide human benefits . . . in a manner and the Shingwedzi Reserve further to the
hit by the Millennium Flood, which was said to which detracts as little as possible from the north. The first tourists arrived at the new
be a ‘one in 100 years flood’. wilderness qualities of the Kruger National ‘national park’ in 1927. The gap between the two
Park.” protected areas was filled in 1944 when Eileen
Some hydrologists believe that floods of this Orpen bought seven farms and donated them
magnitude are more common than is realised. I have been re-reading Stevenson-Hamilton’s to the government.
Months after the Millennium Flood, an old book, South African Eden, and in it he gives an
staff member at Skukuza pointed out a mark account of how, when he was living at Skukuza Stevenson-Hamilton retired as the park’s first
painted by Lt-Col Stevenson-Hamilton, Kruger’s not long after World War II, he was told that warden 20 years later. He died aged 90 in White
first warden, on the Selati railway bridge that certain farmers were to be allowed to graze River in 1957.
spans the Sabie at Skukuza. The mark showed sheep in his Sabi Game Reserve and around
the height of a flood in 1950. There was little Pretoriuskop and that, because of the presence
difference between the two levels. Later, of predators, they could carry guns.
somebody recorded that Stevenson-Hamilton,
in 1950, was shown a landmark by a Shangaan
staff member who recalled a flood reaching
there in 1900 – a flood that appeared to be as
high as the Millenium Flood.

BLUE VALLEY NEWS • Issue 2 2022• 15